Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation and Union Welcomes ‘Invisible Church’ to Membership.
The Union American Methodist Episcopal Church (UAMEC), a historic 200-year-old denomination, joined the Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation and Union during the commission’s Nov. 19-21 meeting.
The UAMEC, according to the United Methodist News Service (UMNS) is the “invisible strand” of African Methodism, despite its deep roots in American history. The 6,000 member church has congregations in the New England states, Jamaica and Liberia, and was founded in 1805 by Peter Spencer and William Anderson, both lay preachers, who led 40 blacks out of predominantly white Asbury Methodist Church in Wilmington, Del.
“We were first known as the Church of Africans,” said Bishop Linwood Rideout, one of the three bishops in the UAMEC. “We are known as an invisible strand of African Methodism because our founder was never given the recognition that he deserved.”
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Rideout explained that joining the commission, a joint effort by other denominations to foster cooperation and unity within the Methodist tradition, allows his church to become more familiarized with other Methodist bodies and with “our rich heritage, our history.”
“It is important to be visible and get to know other branches of Methodism and get to know brothers and sisters whose faith is based on the same thing,” Rideout said.
Meanwhile, in other business, the Commission members adopted a statement calling on government and international officials to establish a peace process in Sudan that “holistically considers the concerns of all Sudanese parties and ethnic groups.”
“War has created deep brokenness throughout the world,” the commission noted in an open letter to U.S. and United Nations officials. “Particularly, we are distraught that tens of thousands of God’s people in Darfur, Sudan, die from preventable famine, disease and violence as part of state-sponsored genocide.”
“As Methodists, believing there is no holiness but ‘social holiness,’ we urgently call for the establishment of peace and security throughout the nation of Sudan,” the commission said. “It is clear that there can be no resolution to the humanitarian crisis until there is a broader plan for regional stability brokered by the United Nations Security Council and the African Union.”
The Commission on Pan Methodist Cooperation and Union represents five strands of American Methodism – the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Union American Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist churches. Currently, the 38-member commission has nine representatives from four strands of African Methodism, according to the UMNS. The rest of the commission members come from the UMC – second largest Protestant denomination in the US. Together, the body represents more than 15 million Methodists worldwide.
The Commission, established in 2000 by the general conferences of each denomination, has one essential goal: foster unity among its member denominations in evangelism, missions, publications, social concerns and higher education. (UMNS)
Accordingly, the Commission’s mission statement reads: “As members of the family of Methodism, we are called to move toward union by redefining and strengthening our relationship in Jesus Christ.”
